Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert 8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151 Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408 http://www.gunowners.org Wednesday, April 1, 2009 In March, both the U.S. House and Senate finished up work on a massive, anti-gun $10 billion omnibus federal land bill. The bill had been held up for over a year in large part due to GOA members fighting for Second Amendment rights on federal land -- YOUR land. The Second Amendment has been null and void for many years on all land controlled by the National Park Service (NPS). While regulations promulgated in the waning days of the Bush administration partially reversed that gun ban, a federal judge recently blocked those rules from taking effect. GOA worked closely with pro-gun members of the House and Senate to add a complete repeal of the NPS gun prohibition to the larger land bill. While these efforts delayed passage of the bill, in the end the anti-gun congressional leadership teamed up with "pro-gun" compromisers and passed the measure without protecting the Second Amendment. In an effort to appease gun owners, language was added to the bill to protect hunting and fishing. But, as GOA pointed out to the Congress, the Founding Fathers did not pledge their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to protect a recreational pastime. The final attempt to protect the Second Amendment from NPS bureaucrats came on a procedural vote in the House that would have made in order an amendment, sponsored by pro-gun Reps. Doc Hastings (R-WA) and Rob Bishop (R-UT), to repeal the gun ban. That motion failed by a vote of 242-180. So now not only does the gun ban remain in place, the new bill greatly expands the total amount of NPS land. Since NPS-controlled parks and trails also include many busy roadways, hundreds of thousands of gun owners can unwittingly find themselves in violation of the gun ban without even knowing they are on federal land. Representatives Hastings and Bishop, along with Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), have vowed to continue their efforts to wipe this unconstitutional gun ban from the books. In the Senate, Tom Coburn (R-OK) is also pushing for the repeal of the anti-gun NPS regulations. Gun Owners of America would like to thank the thousands upon thousands of email subscribers who repeatedly contacted their congressmen in this battle to protect the Second Amendment. We were sold out by compromisers this time, but we will "remember in November" those who voted against the Second Amendment. Please help spread the word so we can get even more people contacting their elected officials. As the late Senator Everett Dirksen said, "When I feel the heat, I see the light." And do we ever need to turn up the heat! Many important battles for your Second Amendment rights lay before us. For instance, Barack Obama and his anti-gun cronies are making a massive push to renew the Clinton semi-auto ban. The President and his Attorney General, Eric Holder, are blaming the current violence among Mexican drug cartels on firearms from the United States. This is another blatant attempt by anti-gun advocates to use whatever situation they can find to further erode your Second Amendment rights. The problems of corruption and violence in Mexico should not be used as an excuse to curtail your right to keep and bear arms. But once again law-abiding American gun owners are in danger of being punished for the criminal actions of others. The Clinton gun ban is just one of the attacks that you and GOA will be fighting. There is also a massive anti-gun bill in Congress, H.R. 45, that includes universal gun owner licensing and registration, and the Obama White House continues its efforts to ban private firearms transactions at gun shows. You can help us reach out to even more gun owners. Please forward this message to your friends and encourage them to sign up for the GOA email alerts. And if you haven't already become a member of GOA, consider joining. For a small amount of money such as $35, $50 or $100, you can join with other Americans to save our Constitutional rights. Visit www.gunowners.org to join GOA today. Thank you again for being part of the GOA team working to protect American liberty.
Archive for April 3rd, 2009
Greater Gun Rights Battles Looming
April 3, 2009The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S.
April 3, 2009
EXCLUSIVE: You’ve heard this shocking “fact” before — on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.
– Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.
– CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.
– California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: “It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors … come from the United States.”
– William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in the House of Representatives that “there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States.”
There’s just one problem with the 90 percent “statistic” and it’s a big one:
It’s just not true.
In fact, it’s not even close. By all accounts, it’s probably around 17 percent.
What’s true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency’s assistant director, “is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S.”
Full Story Here:
The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of G
Well, well, well! The BATF is lying concerning the numbers. Eric Holder and Company are liars too, using skewed figures in their desire to reinstate the AWB and take guns from the hands of lawful, sane and responsible gun owners. Who’d a thunk it.
I have said it, nearly all gun bloggers have said it, the drug lords in Mexico are NOT going to get their guns and explosive ordinance from the USA when they can buy it, unhindered, on the world market and through black market sources in Central and South America.
This is vindication of the American gun owner. Now we need to watch very closely and see if any other MSM news sources pick up on this, and watch the Attorney General himself. This could set that unstable asshat of on a campaign of vindication, with American gun owners as HIS target.
Thanks to FOXNews and their reporters for this, great work folks, and much needed as well!
Well, we told you so…
April 3, 2009Health Plan Threatens to Feed Your Gun-related Data Into a National Database --- And charge you $10,000 a year for the privilege Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert 8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151 Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408 http://www.gunowners.org Thursday, April 2, 2009 In a year when trillion dollar bailouts have become routine, many Americans have become almost numb to our acceleration towards socialism. But gun rights activists aren't in that crowd, and so GOA has to inform you of yet ANOTHER threat to your privacy, the Second Amendment, and even your wallet. It is called an "individual mandate" or, alternatively, the "Massachusetts plan." And over the weekend, both the Washington Post and the New York Times worked hard to build momentum for it. First, a little history. We alerted you a few weeks ago to the gun control provisions in the stimulus bill that President Obama signed in February. Our government will now spend between $12 and $20 BILLION to require the medical community to retroactively put our most confidential medical records into a government database -- a database that could easily be used to deny veterans (and other law-abiding Americans) who have sought psychiatric treatment for things such as PTSD. Currently, gun owners can avoid getting caught in this database by refusing to purchase health insurance or by purchasing insurance with a carrier that has not signed an agreement with the government to place your records in a national database. But that's all about to change. A budget resolution -- to be voted on this Friday in the Senate -- will be the first domino in a process that could FORCE you to buy government-approved insurance, thus making it impossible to avoid the medical database. Put another way: If you do not have health insurance -- or, potentially, if you do not have the TYPE of health insurance the government wants you to have -- the government will force you to purchase what it regards as "acceptable" health insurance. And, in most cases, you will have to pay for it out of your own pocket. What would all this cost? Based on comparable insurance currently on the market, it could cost $10,000 a year -- or more. If you were jobless, the socialists would probably spot you the ten grand. But if you are middle class and can't pay $10,000 because of your mortgage payments, your small business, or your kids' college education, you would be fined (over $1,000 a year currently in Massachusetts). And, if you couldn't pay the confiscatory fine, you could ultimately be imprisoned. Scary, you say. But why is this a Second Amendment issue? Under the Massachusetts plan, your MANDATED insurance carrier has to feed your medical data into a centralized database -- freely accessible by the government under federal privacy laws. So... remember when your pediatrician asked your kid if you have a firearm in the home? Or when your dad was given a prescription for Zoloft because of his Alzheimer's? Or when your wife mentioned to her gynecologist that she had regularly smoked marijuana ten years ago? All of this would be in a centralized database. And all of it could potentially be used to vastly expand the "prohibited persons" list maintained by the FBI in West Virginia. How serious a threat is this? If it gets into the budget resolution the Senate will consider on Friday, it will be almost impossible to strip out later. It will be as much of a done-deal as the stimulus package was. We have asked senators to introduce language to prohibit such an individual mandate for socialized medicine that would violate the privacy of gun owners. In the absence of such an amendment, we are asking senators to vote against the budget resolution. ACTION: Write your U.S. Senators. Urge them to vote against the budget resolution if it does not contain language prohibiting a mandate that Americans buy government-approved health insurance against their will. Please use the Gun Owners Legislative Action Center at http://www.gunowners.org/activism.htm to send your Senators the pre-written e-mail message below. ----- Pre-written letter ----- Dear Senator: A budget resolution that could end up requiring Americans to purchase expensive health insurance policies against their will is truly frightening. And equally alarming is the fact that such mandated health care coverage could easily become a shill for gun control. Potentially, anyone who does not have health insurance-- or does not have the TYPE of health insurance the government wants them to have -- will be forced to purchase "acceptable" health insurance and pay for it out of our own pockets. Based on the cost of comparable insurance currently on the market, that could cost $10,000 a year -- or more. That's bad enough. But far worse, such a "Massachusetts Plan" would MANDATE that an insurance carrier feed medical data into a centralized database -- freely accessible by the government under federal privacy laws. Hence, a kid's statement to his pediatrician about his parents' firearms... or a dad's prescription for Zoloft because of his Alzheimer's... or a wife's statement to her gynecologist about her regular use of marijuana ten years ago... could all turn up in a federal database and unconstitutionally expand the list of "prohibited persons." Individuals would have no ability to opt out. For all of these reasons, if the budget resolution does not contain language prohibiting an "individual mandate" regarding health care, I would ask that you oppose the budget resolution. Sincerely,
Conservative Libertarian Outpost 